Code as Craft – Etsy engineering blog
We launched a new blog for the engineering team at Etsy, Code as Craft. There’s also a really vibrant discussion going on over at Fred’s blog.
(Psst, we are hiring).
Review: Google Nexus One phone
(one of my New Years resolutions is to write more — here’s a start! Happy New Year!)
I was lucky enough to get a pre-release Google Nexus One phone just a few weeks ago. Engadget has an extended review of the phone, so I’ll leave it to them to give you all of the raw specs and details. This is just my own experience with the phone. Note that I didn’t really spend significant time reading about how to use the phone and judged it largely on how intuitive it would be on its own. If I’m missing any simple tricks, definitely let me know.
First of all, I was excited to get the phone in the mail, but mainly looked at it as a curiosity and a toy to play with before I went back to my beloved iPhone. I decided to take the SIM card out of my iPhone for an afternoon on the day I got the phone, and that afternoon turned into a few weeks. Just now as I’m writing this, I had to turn on my iPhone to remember what apps I was missing (more on that later. . . but I guess I wasn’t missing them that much).
Here’s the breakdown:
Pros
The phone is unlocked. This is huge, and if it hadn’t been unlocked, I would have never been able to try it so easily with my AT&T SIM. Openness FTW. I didn’t really notice that I was only at EDGE speeds.
The apps are solid. I didn’t do exhaustive app research, but I very quickly installed and used these apps: AndChat (IRC), Bank of America, ConnectBot (ssh client), eBuddy (IM), Evernote, Facebook, FlightTrack, Foursquare, GPS Status, gStrings (guitar tuner), Google Maps, Flixster, NYC Bus & Subway, Pandora, Scoreboard, ShopSavvy (barcode comparison shopping), Twidroid (Twitter client), WeatherBug, and Yelp.
Google Voice. If you use Google Voice on this phone, it absolutely KILLS Visual Voicemail on the iPhone. I thought Visual Voicemail was one of the greatest features of the iPhone, so this is significant. Imagine Visual Voicemail with automated (though not 100% accurate) transcripts of the voice mails. The Google Voice experience with my iPhone was frustrating since it isn’t well-integrated into the iPhone. This is the Google phone, so as you would expect, the integration is tight.
Background apps. Anyone with an iPhone knows what it’s like to switch between apps, especially mail using IMAP. I hated waiting for my mail to come down when I switched to the mail app on the iPhone. With the Nexus One and Android, it all happens in the background while other apps are running. In this way, it feels more like a Blackberry experience. This also makes installing and updating other apps much more seamless and behind-the-scenes.
Removable battery. Not since I had my old Treo (my last pre-iPhone phone) have I had the ability to carry an extra battery. That is huge given the poor battery life of today’s power-draining phones. I don’t have the extra battery yet, but I’m sure I will get one.
Cons
Some apps are missing versus the iPhone, as you might expect. I’ve become a Dropbox devotee, and there’s no Dropbox client for Android. I didn’t miss it too much, though, and Dropbox is advertising for a developer to build the client. While I have this as a “con,” the fact that the company behind the app I’m missing most is looking for a developer bodes well for the Android ecosystem. Amazon’s Kindle app isn’t available, and I used to switch between reading books on my Kindle and iPhone readily (especially nice when stuck on the subway with limited space to read). In any case, I think I can live without these.
Something about the way the “home screen” works just doesn’t seem intuitive to me. I don’t have trouble navigating, I just have to think about it every time. Not sure how to describe this in writing!
I miss the hardware sound on/off switch on the side of the iPhone — much easier than the software menus on the Android.
Overall
Overall, I love the phone and am planning to stick with it. If you’re largely using Google applications (Gmail, Voice, Maps), the integration is seamless. Philosophically, the openness of the Android platform is appealing. In the end, the Nexus One turned me into a new Android fan.
John Allspaw joins Etsy
What a great way to dust the cobwebs off my blog: my good friend and former colleague John Allspaw is joining Etsy!
John Allspaw joins the Etsy team (Etsy blog post)
From One Door to Another (John’s post)
I’m speechless and happy.
Prague’s Franz Kafka Airport Named World’s Most Alienating Airport
Haven’t blogged in a while, so going to shake the rust out of the engine with a little dark humor (side note: when I joined Salon back in the day, I named our first server “kafka”).
To those of you on the Q train this morning, that was me staring at my iPhone and cracking up. I have newfound respect and admiration for Bobbie Battista.
Prague’s Franz Kafka International Named World’s Most Alienating Airport
The Etsy API
In work-related news, I wrote today about the Etsy API we’ve been working on over on Etsy’s blog, the Storque:
http://www.etsy.com/storque/etsy-news/tech-updates-handmade-code-etsys-beta-api-3055/
We’re letting a select group of developers kick the tires in an invite-only beta. If you’re interested in participating, email developer@etsy.com (I’ll see the email there). We’ll have more to say as we get closer to a general release, so stay tuned.
I love this stuff!
We are hiring at Etsy – come join us!
I’m hiring a few key positions on the engineering team at Etsy. See the links below for more details, but before you jump to read them, I wanted to say a little more about the type of person I’m looking 
for. Of course, I want people who write great code and get things done, but more than anything else, I want to hire people who care about the buyers and sellers that make Etsy what it is.
These are jobs that matter. Each of these positions is a dream job (I know mine is!) You will be building new features for and maintaining a marketplace that creative people around the world depend on to make a living. You will be helping enable and surface beautiful stories like the stories of Robin and Kathy Tucker of woodmosaics. If you read their profile, you’ll learn about how Robin developed his style and approach to woodworking, and what tools he uses, including the foot-powered table saw he made with his brother. The profile ends with this:
I know of no better way to make wood stand out and be truly beautiful.
For a lot of people, this is what dreams are made of, they dream of buying it and I dream of selling it.
Dreams do come true!
How many places can you work where your community says you make dreams come true?
Despite some of the gloom-and-doom in the larger economy, Etsy continues to grow. When I’m talking to people about Etsy as a business, I always ask, “Want to guess what the biggest three days in the history of Etsy were?” Usually, the person thinks for a bit and guesses “the day after Thanksgiving last year” and a few other random days. If I ever ask you that question, here’s a hint. Lately, the answer is nearly always the same: the three biggest days in history at Etsy were yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that. You can read some of the numbers yourself in the monthly updates on our blog. The growth of Etsy is a testament to the continued passion and dedication of the community that you would be working hard to support.
Here are the positions we’re hiring (all are based in Brooklyn):
If any of these sound like a dream role for you, and you find Etsy as inspiring as I do (just do a search for “love etsy“), please email me with your resume and tell me why you’re the perfect person to join the engineering team at Etsy (chad -at- etsy dot com).
This blog is NOT dead
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to let you know that this blog is NOT dead. I simply have too many interesting things going on to take the time to record them here (and apologies to those of you who are awaiting my email replies).
Brooklyn is awesome and Etsy is awesome. More soon.
Your pal,
Chad
A quick report from the trenches at Etsy
“Busy” does not adequately describe my first two weeks living in Brooklyn and working at Etsy.
To give you a glimpse into what I’ve been doing and dealing with, check out my first post on Etsy’s blog, the Storque and the resulting forum thread on Etsy’s forums.
I’ve had to jump in head first and there are plenty of challenges, but I’m loving it. Expect light posting here while I focus on the work at hand.
Going paperless: one year later
As I’ve been packing for my move, one thing that I haven’t been packing is papers. About a year ago, I posted about going paperless after I ordered a Fujitsu ScanSnap, the amazing little document scanner. I haven’t discussed the outcome of my paperless quest since then, but here’s the verdict (and I’m typing in all caps for the first time on my blog because this is just how emphatically I feel about it): BUY A SCANSNAP AND GO PAPERLESS NOW. THE IPHONE HAS NOTHING ON THE SCANSNAP. IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
The utter awesomeness of having everything available digitially didn’t truly hit me until I started packing for the move. I have one single thin folder of papers that can’t be scanned for one reason or another (e.g. a certified birth certificate that has embossed). Everything else fits on a thumb drive: receipts and tax materials for the past seven years, copies of loan papers, business cards, user manuals for various products I own that aren’t available online. . . . you name it.
Once I got these “official” papers all scanned, I started scanning various mementos of sentimental value that I didn’t want to throw away: old clippings from college, concert and sports tickets, the original copy of my valedictory speech at my high school graduation, bad poetry and song lyrics over the years, etc. These are things I didn’t want to throw away completely, but don’t deserve box space. The same goes for things like paper take-out menus for favorite restaurants. With experiences like Cover Flow in OS X, I even have the same experience of flipping through a shoebox of mementos or a stack of take-out menus.
So — in case I wasn’t clear, you should get a ScanSnap. That’s all I’m saying.
Want to buy my Subaru? (2005 Outback Ltd XT Turbo)
(Note: SOLD!! I ended up selling the car via Craigslist, so please don’t inquire. When someone showed up with good money 36 hours before the auction ended, I didn’t have the stomach to see if I could make a few hundred extra bucks. I cancelled my eBay auction and ate the listing fee. Still, it was pretty exciting watching the process.)
Since I won’t be needing a car in New York, I’m selling my Subaru. As Subarus go, this is a top-end model — all-leather interior, giant moon roof, all weather package (heated seats/mirrors), dual climate control for AC/heat, bike rack, etc. It’s a perfect car if you have kids, like to go skiing or snowboarding at Tahoe, mountain-biking, or just need to run errands around town. It’s in really great shape and I wouldn’t consider selling it if I wasn’t moving to a place where I don’t need a car.
I decided to give eBay a try out of curiosity more than anything else. If you’re interested, email me for more info (chad at the domain of this blog) and/or go bid on eBay — here is the listing and here are some photos:
